Country mice

Jim and Melissa, my brother and youngest sister, finally made their way down from Minnesota to visit us last weekend. Jim has been down here a few times this summer, but Lissa has always been busy with one or more of the following: 1) Acting in plays/musicals, 2) Playing volleyball, or 3) Reading cheesy Christian historical fiction books. Just kidding about the last one; I think she outgrew that.

Anyway, here’s a picture of them on the footbridge over LSD on our way to the beach:

We were on our way to the Chicago Historical Society, but we never made it. Instead, we walked out on this breakwater:

That’s my knee — it was really bright and I couldn’t see the screen on the camera. Out there, Jim decided to jump off the thing, which freaked out the people sitting at the end. He went up to them and asked, “Do you know how deep is it here?” The guy said, “No, sorry.” So Jim was like “Okay” and just jumped off. He swam around and treaded water to show off his mad SEAL skills. He’ll be down at GLNTC next month to start his formal killing-for-hire career training.

(This Blogger picture uploading thing sucks.)

After the great cold-water adventure, we walked to Michigan Avenue to see all the fancy-ass rich people on their shopping expeditions. Also, we stopped at a bookstore, which is a bad thing. I started this book-buying spree, and now I have too many to read. The next day we went to an awesome used bookstore in Bucktown/Wicker Park. Then my Amazon order showed up (we buy everything with this credit card that gives us free Amazon gift certificates — it rocks). So I have to read all of these now:

– Seeing Voices, Oliver Sacks (1/4-way done)– The Secret History, Donna Tartt– The Island of the Colour-blind and Cycad Island, Sacks again– The Varieties of Religious Experience, William James– Running With Scissors, Augusten Burroughs– The Plan of Chicago, Carl Smith (1/2-way done)– Essential Writings, Thomas Paine– The Age of Reason, Thomas Paine (almost done, great book)– Stranger and Friend, Hortense Powdermaker (read this a few years ago, but great book)– Getting Stoned with Savages, J. Maarten Troost– The Sex Lives of Cannibals, Troost again (I’m a few pages into this one)

Plus I’m 100 pages into Catch-22, and I was just about to finish re-reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. I do this once a year or so — start too many books, then take months to catch up. It’s a problem, but I can’t pass up buying a book that looks good, and I can’t buy it and just let it sit on a shelf without at least starting it to see if it’s good.

Anyway, I was trying to leave you with a stitched-together view of the Chicago skyline from the breakwater, but this picture-uploading thing doesn’t work, sorry. Well, here’s a link to it: Click here .